Characterizing Green and Brown Employment in India (English)

Transitioning toward sustainable development practices is expected to result in broad changes to economic activity, which will subsequently impact labor markets and change the demand for skills. India established the Skill Council for Green Jobs to identify green jobs and define the skills required for these occupations. This paper applies the Skill Council for Green Jobs definition of green jobs and an international definition of brown jobs to data from the 2019-20 Periodic Labour Force Survey to estimate the size of green and brown employment, document patterns between and within occupations, characterize workers by attributes and skills, and study wage differentials. The results highlight the importance of monitoring green and brown jobs with robust labor market monitoring systems to guide decisions on the sustainability transition and suggest key aspects to consider when investing in green skills and the potential distributive consequences of sustainability policies on the population.